Zealand Pharma enters partnerships worth up to USD 1.2 bn

Copenhagen-based Zealand Pharma could pay Generate Biomedicines up to USD 1.2 billion depending on milestones in the new collaboration, which was announced earlier this week.

The collaboration will combine Zealand Pharma's expertise in metabolic health and Generate's AI platform, The Generate Platform, to create drug candidates.

In the new setup, Generate will use its proprietary AI platform to lead research through lead-candidate selection, while Zealand Pharma will assume responsibility for subsequent clinical development, regulatory submissions, and worldwide commercialization.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Generate, a leader in AI and structure-enabled drug generation. This collaboration expands our toolbox to include proteins, complementing our existing small-molecule and peptide capabilities and opening new approaches for polypharmacology for innovative therapeutics,” said Utpal Singh, Chief Scientific Officer at Zealand Pharma, in a press release.

Today, Zealand Pharma's business is primarily made up of peptide based drugs, with the new collaboration expanding its work to include protein based therapeutics.

Inititally, Generate will receive USD 30 million and up to USD 35 million in preclinical milestones, being eligible for totalt milestones of USD 1.2 billion.

Zealand Pharma is located in Copenhagen but has a division in Massachusetts. Generate Biomedicines is based in Massachusetts as well.